Obama: Economy will suffer from sequester

President Barack Obama Tuesday urged Congress to pass a short-term package of spending cuts and to close tax loopholes, warning of grave economic consequences if a package of automatic spending cuts takes effect in coming weeks as part of the sequester.

“If they can’t get a bigger package done by the time the sequester is scheduled to go into effect, then I believe they should at least pass a smaller package,” Obama said at the White House. “There is no reason that the jobs of thousands of Americans who work in national security or education or clean energy—not to mention the growth of the entire economy—should be put in jeopardy.”

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Obama urges Congress to pass sequester delay

However, the idea of raising new revenues immediately ran into resistance among Republicans on Capitol Hill —including House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, who told POLITICO he is “flabbergasted” by the president’s calling for a short-term proposal.

“Until he addresses the real problem, which is mandatory spending, he’s just whistling in the wind,” McKeon said. “To think that we can just keep cutting our military and solve all of this problem on the back of the military; why doesn’t he just step out and face up to the fact that he could totally eliminate the military, he could totally eliminate the domestic budget, totally, and we’d still be running a half-trillion-dollars-a-year deficit? That’s the real problem and it’s time he face up to it.”

Asked if a temporary sequester delay past the March 1 effective date was better than nothing, the California Republican replied, “Ah, jeez. Anybody that just keeps buying into this, the idea that we can just keep the mandatory spending going up like this, interest going up like this, defense spending going down like this, is not serious.”

They also argued that the president has been absent from ongoing discussions about how to avoid sequestration. “We welcome President Obama to the table, perhaps better late than never,” they said. “We will continue working as well, making every effort to resolve a crisis that could do unprecedented harm to our military.”

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) released a more conciliatory joint statement on Tuesday, saying that they’d examine Obama’s proposal — but reiterating their position that “with the economy still struggling and job growth very weak, the last thing America needs is a tax increase.”